47.— IRON-CLAD  SERIES, 


POVERTY: 

ITS  EFFECTS  ON  THE 

POLITICAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  PEOPLE. 


BY  CHARLES  BRADLAUGH. 

“ Political  Economy  does  not  itself  instruct  how  to  make  a 
nation  rich,  but  whoever  would  be  qualified  to  judge  of  the  means 
of  making  a nation  rich  must  first  be  a political  economist.” — John 
Stuart  Mill. 

“The  object  of  political  economy  is  to  secure  the  means  of 
subsistence  of  all  the  inhabitants,  to  obviate  every  circumstance 
which  might  render  this  precarious,  to  provide  everything  neces- 
sary for  supplying  the  wants  of  society,  and  to  employ  the  inhab- 
itants so  as  to  make  the  interests  accord  with  their  supplying  each 
other’s  wants.” — Sir  James  Stewart. 

On  one  occasion  in  the  world’s  history,  a people  rose 
searching  for  upright  life,  who  had  previously,  for  sev- 
eral generations,  depressed  by  poverty  and  its  attendant 
hand-maidens  of  misery,  prowled  lmnger-striken  and 
disconsolate,  stooping  and  stumbling  through  the  by- 
ways of  existence.  A mighty  revolution  resulted  in 
much  rough  justice  and  some  brutal  vengeance,  much  rude 
right,  and  some  terrific  wrong.  Among  the  writers 
who  have  since  narrated  the  history  of  this  people’s 
struggle,  some  penmen  have  been  assiduous  and  hasty 
to  search  for,  and  chronicle  the  errors,  and  have  even  not 
hesitated  to  magnify  the  crimes  of  the  rebels  ; while  they 
have  been  slow  to  recognize  the  previous  demoralizing 
tendency  of  the  system  rebelled  against.  In  this  pamph- 
let it  is  proposed  to  very  briefly  deal  with  the  state 
of  the  people  in  France  immediately  prior  to  the 
grand  convulsion  which  destroyed  the  Bastile  Monarchy, 
and  set  a glorious  example  of  the  vindication  of  the 
rights  of  man  against  opposition  the  most  formidable 


3 3>  <5 

2 POVERrSg>‘~j  Y 

that  can  be  concieved;  believing  that  even  in  this  slight 
illustration  of  the  condition  of  the  masses  in  France  who 
sought  to  erect  on  the  ruins  of  arbitrary  power  the  glo- 
rious edifice  of  civil  and  religious  liberty,  an  answer 
may  be  found  to  the  question  : “ What  is  the  effect  of 
poverty  on  the  political  condition  J of  the  people.” 

In  taking  the  instance  of  France,  it  is  not  that  the 
writer  for  one  moment  imagines  that  poverty  is  a word 
without  meaning  in  our  own  lands.  The  clamming 
factory  hands  in  the  Lancanshire  valleys,  the  distressed 
ribbon  weavers  of  Conventry,  and  the  impoverished 
laborers  in  various  parts  of  Ireland  and  Scotland  would 
be  able  to  give  us  a definition  of*  the  word  fearful  in 
its  distinctness.  But  in  England  ' poverty  is  happily 
partial,  while  in  France  in  the  eighteenth  century  pov- 
erty was  universal  outside  the  palaces  of  the  nobles 
and  the  mansions  of  the  church,  where  luxury,  voluptu- 
ousness, and  effeminacy  were  regnant.  In  the  seventeenth 
and  eighteenth  centuries  travelers  in  France  could  learn 
from  “ the  sadness,  the  solitude,  the  miserable  poverty, 
the  dismal  nakedness  of  the  empty  cottoges,  and  the 
starving,  ragged  population,  how  much  men  could  en- 
dure without  dying.”  On  the  one  side  a discontented, 
wretched,  hungry  mass  of  tax-providing  slaves,  and  on 
the  other  a rapacious,  pampered,  licentious,  spendthrift 
mornachy.  This  culminated  in  the  refusal  of  the  labor- 
ers to  cultivate  the  fertile  soil  because  the  tax-gatherer’s 
rapacity  left  an  insufficient  remnant  to  provide  the 
cultivator  with  the  merest  necessaries  of  life.  Then 
followed  “ uncultivated  fields,  unpeopled  villages,  and 
houses  dropping  to  decay;”  the  great  cities — as  Paris, 
Lyons,  and  Bordeaux — crowded  with  begging  skeletons, 
frightful  in  their  squallid  disease  and  loathsome  aspect. 


Vj  a a oi  x jw 


POVERTY. 


3 


V 


f* 


Even  after  the  National  Assembly  had  passed  some 
measures  of  temporary  alleviation,  the  distress  in  Paris 
itself  was  so  great  that  at  the  gratuitous  distributions  of 
ibread  “ old  people  have  been  seen  to  expire  with  their 
hand  ^stretched  out  to  receive  the  loaf,  and  women 
waiting  in  their  turn  in  front  of  the  baker’s  shop  were 
prematurely  delivered  of  dead  children  in  the  open  streets.” 
The  great  mass  of  the  people  were  as  ignorant  as  they 
were  poor;  were  ignorant  indeed  because  they  were 
poor.  Ignorance  is  the  pauper’s  inalienable  heritage. 
When  the  struggle  is  for  the  means  of  subsistence, 
and  these  are  only  partially  obtained,  there  is  little  hope 
for  the  luxury  of  a leisure  hour  in  which  other  emotions 
can  be  cultivated  than  those  of  the  mere  desires  for  food 
and  rest — sole  results  of  the  laborious  monotonousness 
of  machine  work;  a round  oft  )il  and  sleep  closing  in 
death — the  only  certain  refuge  for  the  worn  out  laborer. 
Without  the  opportunity  afforded  by  the  possession  of 
more  than  will  satisfy  the  immediate  wants,  there  can 
be  little  or  no  culture  of  the  mental  faculties.  The 
toiler  badly  paid  and  ill-fed,  is  separated  from  the  thinker. 
Nobly-gifted,  highly-cultured  though  the  poet  may  be, 
his  poesy  has  no  charms  for  the  father  to  whom  one  hour’s 
leisure  means  short  food  for  his  hungry  children  clamor- 
ing for  bread.  The  picture  gallery,  replete  with  the 
finest  works  of  our  greatest  masters,  is  forbidden  ground 
to  the  pitman,  the  plowman,  the  poor  pariahs  to  whom 
the  conceptions  of  the  highest  art-treasures  are  impossi- 
ble. The  beauties  of  nature  are  almost  equally  inaccessi- 
ble to  the  dwellers  in  the  narrow  lanes  of  great  cities. 
Out  of  your  narrow  wynds  in  Edinburgh  and  Glasgow, 
and  on  to  the  moor  and  mountain-side,  ye  poor,  and  breathe 
the  pure  life-renewing  breezes.  , Not  so;  the  moors  are 


4 


POVERTY. 


for  the  sportsmen  and  peers,  not  peasants ; and  a Scotch 
Duke — emblem  of  the  worst  vices  of  a corrupt  and 
selfish,  but  fast-decaying  House  of  Lords — closes  miles 
of  heather  against  the  pedestrian’s  foot.  But  even  this 
paltry  oppression  is  unneeded.  Duke  Despicable  is  in 
unholy  alliance  with  King  Poverty,  who  mocks  at  the 
poor  mother  and  her  wretched,  ragged  family,  when 
from  the  garret  or  cellar  in  a great  Babylon  wilderness 
they  set  out  to  find  green  fields  and  new  life.  Work 
days  are  sacred  to  bread,  and  clothes,  and  rent;  hunger, 
inclement  weather,  and  pressing  landlord  forbid  the 
study  of  nature  ’twixt  Monday  morn  and  Saturday  night, 
and  on  Sunday  God’s  ministers  require  to  teach  a weary 
people  how  to  die,  as  if  the  lesson  were  not  unceasingly 
inculcated  in  their  incessant  toil.  Oh!  horrid  mockery; 
men  need  teaching  how  to  live.  According  to  religion- 
ists, this  world’s  bitter  misery  is  a dark  and  certain  preface, 
“just  published,”  to  a volume  of  eternal  happiness,  which 
for  2,000  years  has  been  advertised  as  in  the  press  and 
ready  for  publication,  but  which  after  all  may  never 
appear.  And  notwithstanding  that  every-day  misery  is 
so  very  potent,  mankind  seem  to  heed  it  but  very  little. 
The  second  edition  of  a paper  containing  the  account  of 
a battle  in  which  some  5,000  were  killed  and  10,000 
wounded,  is  eagerly  perused,  but  the  battle  in  which  pov- 
erty kills  and  maims  hundreds  of  thousands,  is  allowed  to 
rage  without  the  uplifting  of  a weapon  against  the  common 
enemy. 

The  pool*  in  France  were  awakened  by  Rousseau’s 
startling  declaration  that  property  was  spoliation,  they 
knew  they  had  been  spoiled,  the  logic  of  the  stomach 
was  conclusive,  empty  bellies  and  aching  brains  were 
the  predecessors  of  a revolution  which  sought  vengeance 


POVERTY. 


5 


when  justice  was  denied,  but  which  full-stomached  and 
empty-headed  Tories  of  later  days  have  calumniated  and 
denounced. 

Warned  by  the  past,  ought  we  not  to-day  to  give  bat- 
tle to  that  curse  of  all  old  countries — poverty  ? The 
fearful  miseries  of  the  want  of  food  and  leisure  which  the 
poor  have  to  endure  are  such  as  to  seriously  hinder  their 
political  enfranchisement.  Those  who  desire-  that  men 
and  women  shall  have  their  rights  of  citizens,  should  be 
conscious  how  low  the  poor  are  trampled  down,  and  how 
incapable  poverty  renders  them  for  the  performance  of 
the  duties  of  citizenship.  So  that  the  question  of  polit- 
ical freedom  is  really  determined  by  the  wealth  or  pov- 
erty of  the  masses;  to  this  extent,  at  any  rate,  that  a 
poverty-stricken  people  must  necessarily,  after  that  state 
of  pauperism  has  existed  for  several  generations,  be  an 
ignorant  and  enslaved  people. 

The  problem  is,  how  to  remove  poverty,  as  it  is  only 
by  the  removal  of  poverty  that  the  political  emancipation 
of  the  nation  can  be  rendered  possible.  It  has  been  as- 
certained that  the  average  food  of  the  agricultural  laborer 
in  England  is  about  half  that  alloted  by  the  jail  dietary 
to  sustain  criminal  life.  So  that  the  peasant  who  builds 
and  guards  his  master’s  haystack  gets  worse  fed  and 
worse  lodged  than  the  incendiary  convicted  for  burning 
it  down. 

How  can  this  poverty  be  removed  and  prevented  ? 

I quote  the  reply  from  one  who  has  written  most  elab- 
orately in  elucidation  of  the  views  of  Malthus  and  Mill : 
“ There  is  but  one  possible  mode  of  preventing  any  evil 
— namely,  to  seek  for  and  remove  its  cause.  The  cause 
of  low  wages,  or  in  other  words  of  Poverty,  is  over- 
population ; that  is,  the  existence  of  too  many  people  in 


6 


POVERTY. 


proportion  to  the  food,  of  too  many  laborers  in  propor- 
tion to  the  capital.  It  is  of  the  very  first  importance, 
that  the  attention  of  all  who  seek  to  remove  poverty, 
should  never  be  diverted  from  this  great  truth.  The 
disproportion  between  the  numbers  and  the  food  is  the 
only  real  cause  of  social  poverty.  Individual  cases  of 
poverty  may  be  produced  by  individual  misconduct,  such 
as  drunknness,  ignorance,  laziness,  or  disease  ; but  these 
and  all  other  accidental  influences  must  be  wholly  thrown 
out  of  the  question  in  considering  the  permanent  cause, 
and  aiming  at  the  prevention  of  poverty.  Drunknness 
and  ignorance,  moreover,  are  far  more  frequently  the  effect 
than  the  cause  of  poverty.  Population  and  food,  like 
two  runners  of  unequal  swiftness  chained  together,  ad- 
vance side  by  side  ; but  the  ratio  of  increase  of  the  former 
is  so  immensely  superior  to  that  of  the  latter,  that  it 
is  necessarily  greatly  checked  ; and  the  checks  are  of 
course  either  more  deaths  or  fewer  births — that  is,  either 
positive  or  preventive.” 

Unless  the  necessity  of  the  preventive  or  positive 
checks  to  population  be  perceived  ; unless  it  be  clearly 
seen,  that  they  must  operate  in  one  form,  if  not  in 
another  ; and  that  though  individuals  may  escape  them , 
the  race  can  not  ; human  society  is  a hopeless  and  in- 
soluble riddle. 

Quoting  John  Stuart  Mill,  the  writer  from  whom  the 
foregoing  extracts  have  been  made,  proceeds  : 

“ The  great  object  of  statesmanship  should  be  to  raise 
the  habitual  standard  of  comfort  among  the  working 
classes,  and  to  bring  them  into  such  a position  as  shows 
them  most  clearly  that  their  welfare  depends  upon  them- 
selves. For  this  purpose  he  advises  that  there  should 
be,  first,  an  extended  scheme  of  national  emigration, 


POVERTY. 


7 


so  as  to  produce  a striking  and  sudden  inprovement  in 
the  condition  of  the  laborers  left  at  home,  and  raise  their 
standard  of  comfort ; also  that  the  population  truths 
should  be  disseminated  as  widely  as  possible,  so  that  a 
powerful  public  feeling  should  be  awakened  among  the 
working  classes  against  undue  procreation  on  the  part  of 
any  individual  among  them — a feeling  which  could  not 
fail  greatly  to  influence  individual  conduct ; and  also  that 
we  should  use  every  endeavor  to  get  rid  of  the  present 
system  of  labor — namely,  that  of  employers,  and  em- 
ployed, and  adopt  to  a great  extent  that  of  independent 
or  associated  industry.  His  reason  for  this  is,  that  a 
hired  laborer,  who  has  no  personal  interest  in  the  work 
he  is  engaged  in,  is  generally  reckless  and  without 
foresight,  living  from  hand  to  mouth,  and  exerting  little 
control  over  his  powers  of  procreation  ; whereas  the 
laborer  who  has  a personal  stake  in  his  work,  and  the 
feeling  of  independence  and  self-reliance  which  the  pos- 
session of  property  gives,  as,  for  instance,  the  peasant 
proprietor,  or  member  of  a copartnership,  has  far  stronger 
motives  for  self-restraint,  and  can  see  much  more  cle  irly 
the  evil  effects  of  having  a large  family.” 

The  end  in  view  in  all  this  is  the  attainment  of  a 
greater  amount  of  happiness  for  humankind.  The  ren- 
dering life  more  worth  the  living,  by  distributing  more 
equally  than  at  present  its  love,  its  beauties,  and  its 
charms.  In  one  of  his  most  recent  publications,  Mr. 
John  Stuart  Mill  observes  : 

“ In  a world  in  which  there  is  so  much  to  interest,  so 
much  to  enjoy,  and  so  much  also  to  correct  and  improve, 
every  one  who  has  a moderate  amount  of  moral  and  in- 
tellectual requisites  is  capable  of  an  existence  which  may 
be  called  enviable  ; and  unless  such  a person,  through 


8 


POVERTY. 


3 


2 072863613 


bad  laws,  or  subjection  to  the  will  of  others,  is  denied 
the  liberty  to  use  the  sources  of  happiness  within  his 
reach,  he  will  not  fail  to  find  this  enviable  existence,  if 
he  escape  the  positive  evils  of  life,  the  great  sources  of 
physical  and  mental  suffering,  such  as  indigence,  disease, 
and  the  unkindness,  worthlessness,  or  premature  loss  of 
objects  of  affection.  Yet  no  one  whose  opinion  deserves 
a moment’s  consideration,  can  doubt  that  most  of  the 
great  positive  evils  of  the  world  are  in  themselves  re- 
movable, and  will,  if  human  affairs  continue  to  improve, 
be  in  the  end  reduced  within  narrow  limits.  Poverty,  in 
any  sense  implying  suffering,  may  be  completely  ex- 
tinguished by  the  wisdom  of  society,  combined  with  the 
good  sense  and  providence  of  individuals.  Even  that 
most  intractable  of  enemies,  disease,  may  be  indefinitely 
reduced  in  dimensions  by  good  physical  and  moral  edu- 
cation and  proper  control  of  noxious  influences,  while  the 
progress  of  science  holds  out  a promise  for  the  future  of 
still  more  direct  conquests  over  this  detestable  foe.” 

In  a former  pamphlet,  “ Jesus,  Shelly,  and  Mai  thus,” 
the  reader’s  attention  was  entreated  to  this  grave  ques- 
tion. In  a few  pages  it  is  impossible  to  do  more  than 
erect  a fingerpost  to  point  out  a possible  road  to  a given 
end.  To  attempt  in  a narrow  compass  to  give  complete 
details,  would  be  as  unwise  as  it  would  be  unavailing. 
My  desire  is  rather  to  provoke  discussion  among  the 
masses  than  to  obtain  willing  auditors  among  the  few, 
and  I affirm  it,  therefore,  as  a proposition  which  I am 
prepared  to  support,  u That  the  political  conditions  of 
the  people  can  never  be  permanently  reformed  until  the 
cause  of  poverty  has  been  discovered  and  the  evil  itself 
prevented  and  removed.” 

Published  by  A.  K.  BUTTS  & CO.,  36  Dey  Street,  New  York. 


